This past October, I had the privilege of hearing Jay Baer (@jaybaer), president of Convince & Convert, speak at BOLO about his upcoming book, Youtility.
In a nutshell, Youtility is a modern marketing methodology that shifts away from selling, and instead focuses on helping prospects and customers through useful information.
Below I offer a recap of Jay’s philosophy, and the impact it has on agencies.
Enter Friend of Mine Awareness
As Jay pointed out during his presentation, while inbound marketing (or frame of mind awareness, as Jay calls it) is great at fulfilling existing demand, it doesn’t create it. This results in untapped market potential and audience capping.
In addition, personal and commercial relationships are merging, especially on social sites such as Facebook and Twitter, and loyalty is often built through helpful information. This is where friend of mine awareness comes into play.
As Jay explains on the Convince & Convert blog: “With friend of mine awareness, you seek to have the prospective customer allow you inside their circle of trust, where you become more than just a purveyor, but rather a valuable resource. Then, when the customer is ready to buy, they don’t have to go find you, because you’re already there.”
To be successful at this, companies need to be extremely relevant and offer information that makes individuals’ lives better in the long run—regardless of whether it drives an immediate sale. By becoming a Youtility in this way, companies can create lifetime customers, instead of one-time sales.
5 Youtility Tips for Marketing Agencies
According to Jay in a recent Copyblogger interview: “The companies that are going to succeed now and in the future are the companies that really assist their customers and prospective customers in the same way that a friend would assist you.”
Are you taking this into account when building marketing strategies for your clients? If not, Jay offered these five tips at BOLO for getting started:
- Discover customer needs: Know who your clients’ buyer personas are, and uncover information about them via keyword searches, web analytics, social chatter, surveys and interviews.
- Map customer needs to potential programs: For example, maybe you create a blog post series, video series and ebook all around one specific buyer challenge. Keep in mind that sometimes, the most successful programs are tangentially related services.
- Market your marketing: Treat information like a product, and use social to promote your client’s content first, and their company second.
- Make Youtility a skill, not a job: Help your client ingrain helpfulness into the company culture from the CEO down to the everyday employee. Start from the bottom-up. Every employee has knowledge or expertise that can be helpful to a customer or prospect.
- Make Youtility a process, not a project: Having marketing so useful people are willing to pay for it requires a never-ending commitment.
How are you using context and relevance to make your clients useful to their consumers? Share your thoughts below.
Jay Baer Joins the Client Services Series
Jay will be joining us this coming Thursday, Dec. 6 for Session 6 of the Client Services Series—The Tipping Point: How to Adapt and Evolve at a Critical Stage in the Client Lifecycle.
We’re excited to have him, as he brings tremendous real-world experience to the stage, having worked with more than 700 companies (29 of the Fortune 500) as a digital marketing and social media consultant. He’s also started or managed five marketing agencies, so he can offer his own tried-and-true strategies for success.
During Session 6, Jay will discuss how Youtility principles apply to client campaigns and marketing strategy. You don’t want to miss it. Register for the Series today with the promo code jay30 and save 30%.
(Note: Don’t worry if you missed live sessions, all are recorded and available on-demand upon registration.)